Reboot 3: Fuck You, You'll Watch It

I talked on here fairly recently about how movie studios tend to support movies that they know will make a set amount of money. One of the worst ways they do this is with reboots/remakes. Now, to be fair, not all of these remakes are trash. You ever hear of The Maltese Falcon? That was the third movie version of that book, and it was amazing, one of my favorite movies actually. It improved upon the other two movies via cast, directing, and writing. That is the type of remake that needs to get made.

If you are going to bother with a remake, (and let's face it, Hollywood is going to flog their copyrights like a mutinous privateer) at least improve on the base concept. Fright Night is another great example. The original was campy and kinda bad in a fun way, but the remake was a great monster movie. And really, adding David Tennant to anything makes it better. Another modern example is Evil Dead, a remake of a 1981 movie that was a classic in my mind, but the remake managed to, while still using a lot of practical effects, make the whole movie seem more real and more engaging than the first. It took the original story and massaged it to make a great movie even better. They didn't just try to cash in on a fan base that was already there, they also improved it.

Another way of making all of these remakes and reboots a little more tolerable has to do with superhero movies. Studios are already remaking the Fantastic Four, and I will bet money on them rehashing the origin story. An origin we saw 9 years ago. The first film in any superhero series is always bogged down by a 45 minute introduction to why they are super. This is not necessary in many cases. The latest version of spider-man, which was a pretty good movie by the way, spends a good amount of time focusing on Peter Parker's origin. We know this story, Tobey Maguire did it 12 years ago. We, the audience, know what happens to Uncle Ben. Batman does this too. We know his parents die, but we don't go to Batman movies to see Batman's parents die, we go to see him beat the living hell out of villains. The same is true for many other superhero movies.

For heroes like Ant-man and the Guardians of The Galaxy, who are less mainstream, feel free to tell us how they came about. But if you want to do a remake of superman, just skip the origin sequence where krypton gets blown up. If the audience are already fans they will know the origin. If the audience is made up of people who know nothing about the hero, then they will look it up on their phone. If you are afraid the audience just won't buy into the movie, add a sentence or two to explain it quickly so you can commence with bad guy ass-beatery.